Restoration Shaman | SoO Flex | Basic Guide | 11/14

Hello everyone and welcome to my rather basic healing guide for some of the bosses in Flex SoO! Its been a while since I posted anything related to the shaman healing POV and with an awesome flex run last night, I wanted to follow it up while the idea is still fresh in my mind. I really did love healing all the way through my leveling experience and now I'm in SoO it feels so great. Shaman healing in general is in a really great spot right now and have so much utility on every encounter, it really does show how much blizzard have worked on the shamans finally! Of course Smart heals are taking over in this current day in age but we still are regarded as one of the better healers this patch/teir. Below will show the tips and tricks on each boss that I have encountered, Note: This is not a strategy guide on how to kill X boss but what you as a healing shaman can do per boss.  REMEMBER GUYS, I'm new to Shaman healing in MOP so the things I say may be odd, but its just my perspective. I'm not a good player, but make this so others may learn something and help me document things as I go in my healing journey to make me a better player. 

Special Mention to my guild EQ for letting me tag along and hopefully be moving in to normal modes soon! Was an awesome first raid with them and hopefully see more in the future and in WOD! 

Immerseus - Ahh the good old introduction fight to this Tier. I rather enjoyed this fight for healing compared to  being a DPS, I found myself using chain heal a lot more and more on single target healing. My duty here was to focus on the tanks and the ally blobs that spawn around us. I used Healing rain on the tanks (Don't stand by the tanks.. I learned that the hard way) but either to the right or left of them on another platform and use Chain heal as your filler here, spot heal with Healing wave if you need too. I also saved my Tidal wave procs for my greater healing waves on the blobs to get them to full health in about two heals. Use Healing stream on cooldown and save your Healing tide for the last or second from last reform to counter the aoe damage. Spirit link is not really worth it here as the raid is spread all over the place. 

The Fallen Protectors - This encounter plays extremely well to the Restoration Shaman and I for one love healing this! Throughout the fight the raid will be taking damage, so your smart heals here will be sniping away, So keep Healing stream on cooldown, try and keep two riptides on the tanks as they will both be taking some serious damage, use chain heal off of each tank to maximize its output. I use the Primal elemental Talent most of the time if not all of the time and I used it on the first stacking phase with empower and dropped a instant healing rain with a Unleashed Elements before hand to get the maximum effect. Use chain heal here on cooldown. Soon as each phase ends make sure to refresh your healing stream and Use Healing rain on cooldown around the melee or whichever boss is being focused (Make sure you use Unleashed Elements before each Healing rain). On each stacking phase try to use one cooldown and not stack them so much; you will get more output in doing so as each one of ours is extremely good here. Example: First stack, Powered healing rain with Elemental empower. Second, Ascendance with  healing stream and healing rain. Third, Use healing tide with another Empower and healing rain. Spirit link is great on this fight, use it wisely, I found using it when stacking on the adds works great. 

Norushen - Another fantastic fight. At first I was not sure if this would be any good for us Shamans with the amount of moving you do when moving from each beam, but again, smart heals and some clever use of spells can work wonders here. Same as before, try and manage riptides on both tanks. Earth shield on which ever one is tanking. Use healing rain on cooldown around the tanks or along the path your raid takes when moving from the beam. Again, healing stream on cooldown and use call of the elements to place another down ready for the moving. To me, it seems the raid takes more and more damage as the raid goes on so use spirit walkers grace when you need to move and ascendance if things get tricky just to spread your healing. When you get moved in to the other realm and having to heal the protectors, just use greater healing wave combined with tidal waves to heal them up and yourself before you leave. Soon as you're out drop a healing tide or healing stream to top people off.  (Primal Empower is also great here for the moving phases when used with spirit walkers grace and Healing rain)

Sha Of Pride - Love love love this fight for healing! Through out the whole encounter the group will stay stacked and only spread for swirling pride and the add spawns. This encounter plays to every one our our strengths. Use Earth shield on the main tank and cast chain heals, with chaining they will reach back in to the raid (keep riptide on him 100%). For each Swirling mechanic you can have an empowered Healing rain ready to rock so do so through the whole fight. Use healing stream on cooldown as usual and save your oh crap totems for towards the end of the fight or when people sort of fail at moving out a little. Also an important mention, only dispel the debuffs on players when you have the Titan buff. 

Galakras - To me, this is a rather boring fight till the last phase. During the encounter as a shaman you tend to stay at the bottom at all times, ccing when you can and keeping up the spread healing. On the last phase that's were things get interesting. The ranged group and healers are forced to stack, which brings in our fantastic stacked healing in to play. Healing rains, Healing tides and ascendance work great here but spirit link is the savior, save this for when damage really starts to kick it up a notch. 

Iron Juggernaut - I was not a huge fan of this encounter to start with and not exactly great for shaman healing here. Before the shocking pulse we can really put out some huge heals on the tanks taking damage, our only problem is when we do get that knock back, it can really punish our output - Why? We only have spirit walkers grace once during this encounter generally, and the knock back can be huge IF you don't get in a decent position and recover quickly this can happen 3/4 times. I tend to keep riptides switching on the tank currently having the bosses attention and use healing totems like healing stream right before a pulse. A fun fight and a great way to test your imagination to prevent as much knock back as possible! Healing rain works great here but I tend to keep it in and around the melee dps and tanks as the bomb pick ups can hurt! 

Dark Shamans - An awesome healing fight, although something that will really really annoy you as a shaman! It is the amount of movement the tanks have to do. Our healing Rain is one of the top healing abilities when used and placed correctly, but due to the amount of movement it makes it a rather waste of mana using it on that section of the raid group so I tend to use it central of the fighting zone and in and around the ranged/healers. I use riptide on the Main tank with earth shield and spot heal with healing wave and chain heal when needed.  Another problem is Spirit link totem, of course it will only work with players in the totems radius and due to the nature of the beast, the fight counters it, so again use it well, I yet have found a perfect time to use, so please any feedback would be much appreciated! 

General Nazgrim - Ahhh Nazzgrimmm! You beauty! I loved this fight on my Windwalker and even more so on my Shaman. Healing here is a real breeze as long as the DPS don't fail on the defensive phase. A simple fight here, dont stand in the fire, move from swirling axes and if you have a rogue hitting you, dont stand there.. Cast spirt walkers grave and get healing! Use Healing rain between the tanks on DPS phases and range don defensive phase and when the adds are up. The add s do hurt so silence them, slow them as much as possible, I tend ot keep an earth bind totem down just to help. As usual, Healing stream on cooldown and use ascendance when huge aoe damage comes. Simple stuff really. 

Malkorok - Ughh.. Just Ughh.. For other healers like priests and druids Im sure this is an awesome fight. With the absorb affect much like on heroic Tortos, they can boost out some insane healing at the start by using huge cooldowns to heal the whole raid, Us shamans don't do that.. WE DO NOT DO IT BLIZZARD! So your healing tides wont work here as it works as a smart heal, so don't freak out when you see your heals ticking for 1 and 1 and more 1s. We come in to play when we stack after the three hulk like smashes and the raid take a considerable amount of damage. Again healing wave with a boost from Unleashed elements work well here and spirit link totem is a gods send, this will happen two or three times during the whole encounter so use your cooldowns effectively and not at once. Think smart... much like our smart heals. A side note: But Astral Shift works well for soaking pools! 

Spoils Of Pandaria - I adore this fight, there is always something to heal here and so much to look out for. I wont go in to details on what to keep your eye out for and such, there's plenty of guides around to do so, But for Shaman healing, your healing stream is your best friend here. With the glyph you also receive a magic damage resistance which works fantastic here. Keep riptide on your tank, the groups will be split up and on flex/10 mans 2 healers per side works well. Anyway.. Healing rain can once again be used here when the tanks stay stationary for a brief moment so try and work out were he is going to smash some boxes next and pre heal that zone ready for when he is there, that's how I took a better use out of it! There is not a huge amount of moving to do unless your dropping some bombs off so just be careful were you stand and were you're running too here.  If there is a ton of adds up which can happen with the new tanks, Primal Elemental works great here with that extra amount of healing you receive from the empower buff, a great help here for your spread heals! 

Thok The Bloodthirsty - This is what I'm talking about! A Jurassic like Dinobitch with armor and a really good amount of stamina to chase people down all night long! This is a AWEEESOMEEE fight for us shamans! The stacking phases are perfect for our rotation of cooldowns like healing stream, Ascendance and such. Keep an our out for the nature lock though, it can be a real killer but as long as you have a Healing rain ticking away and some totems up, You will be covered! When you're being chased, kite him while in Wolf form and make sure to run the correct way! If you're on dispelling duty like I was, as well as being chased by the Dino your dispels will suffer so make sure every healer do this. I tend to use spirit walkers grace, Healing tide and Ascendance towards the end on the fire phase. You're required to move a hell of a lot which may slow down your output so think smart about when you will be moving too,  were to drop a healing rain etc. Remember Glyph of healing stream is your friend, that further reduction to fire damage can really help here! 

Mana management -  Noticed in each of the bosses I did not mention the best way to save mana and such? Well as I have learnt it is pretty simple to work around. Even at my gear level which is rather bad, I still have no mana issues and are yet to oom in an encounter, Granted I could drop some spirit but Im using crit as my main regen stat. It makes it so our crit heals refund a small amount of mana back, thanks to resurgence. I also Use call of the elements to recover my totem, with the glyph once I recall the totem just before it expires I get a full refund of the mana used to cast that totem which is huge! This is even before I get my legendary meta! Also mana tide totem here is amazing, Instead of saving it towards the end, Use it once when you're around 80% mana and again when you or someone in the raid needs it, this enables you to use it twice, and twice is better than once. I always use a mana potion as well during a Mana tide for that little extra boost, Its not vital but something I like to do. 

A little side note: Again thank you for my current guild for letting me take part in last nights raid, Has a really awesome time and I hope my apparently rather good Pingu impressions put you guys off! :P Also I just bought a new pet for my collection as seen below: Grab yours today! 

Restoration Shaman | Playthrough | 60 - 70

Bonjour! Greetings readers and fellow healers alike! It's that time again to update you on my progress on my little shaman, Vay. I have had a really busy week as usual so I have not had much time to plan this little play through as I have been on my monk a little bit more as well as playing some Hearthstone and some Guild wars. Really do enjoy a number of games right now but i could not wait to stick my teeth in to another shaman post so here goes. 

So we are finally out of the Vanilla section of wow and now diving in to the zone which we held close to our hearts as the best expansion to date and also the first! Outland. I have always loved Outland for a number of reasons. The zones were so diverse and different from the things we experienced on both Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, the questing and factions were so diverse to what we was accustomed too which made it so refreshing. To me this was my favorite expansion, Most of my raiding experience started here and I still to this day enjoy the sheer amount of dungeons this expansion had to offer, so lets dive in and get to know the places I visited. Note: There are many other dungeons in this bracket but I will mention the few I did get to heal while leveling through. 

Hellfire Citadel - This we were we begin our outlandish adventures. This Citadel is home to three dungeons however the following two are the ones I was leveling through. Hellfire Ramparts which is the first dungeon of the zone, this is believed to be the military barracks of the Keep, the front line defense so to speak. Here you will face against fel orcs, wolves, demons and of course more fel orcs, which will all know are bad news! The second dungeon is called the Blood Furnace here Illidans minions have captured Magtheridon and are using there cunning sorcery to drain his blood to build a larger army. This again, is not the best of news you want to here when just visiting this place, however, with more of a demonic feel to this instance you have to get through a maze of orcs, a number of gauntlets to finally get to the bottom of this problem. I love this zone, it was the first real challenge for me in terms of dungeons back in TBC days and was looking forward to finally healing them on my shaman. Lots of aoe packs through the zones made my healing alot better.  

Coilfang Reservoir -  So we have gone from boiling heat, demonic gateways and unforgiving hallways to the underwater habitat of the Coilfang. Again this is home to a number of instances, one of which becomes available at 70 but I only managed to level through two of the instances here. This is a large artificial lake embedded under the tainted waters within Zangermarsh. Under the murky waters holds home to a group of Naga over seeing a subterranean Pumping station. Each dungeon consisting of huge caverns interlinked by pipework powered by huge crystal Capacitor. The Slave Pens is the first dungeon within this zone that holds a number of passage ways that lead you past some lost Naaru. The second dungeon is the Underbog, this place seems to hold the last remaining inhabitants of this zone that have not been totally overran by the Naga. I have always loved these instances and I still enjoy them to this day, I testament to blizzards work!

Auchindoun - The home to the not so holy, This was originally a sanctuary for the fallen heroes within the Draenei community. Now home to a number of factions this zone is housing four instances, three of which I had to heal though. The first instance you enter will be the Mana Tombs, The ethereals are seeking to gain more power to use against creatures within the twisting nether, however this is now over run by currupt beings and a leading figure, Prince Shaffar (sounds like something out of a Jeff Dunham show). The second instance Auchenai Crypts. These are the demonic minions giving this whole play a bad name. Workers, of the burning legion resurrecting the fallen to fight for them, and nothing in their mind will stop them in doing so. Here you will find a number of undead creatures being used as tools to fend off others during their rebirth.
The final instance I dipped my paws in too was Sethekk Halls. Another tomb like structure homing the bird like humans, Arakkoa. Here they are practicing their dark magics, perfecting there evil spells to gain a larger understanding of the world as they believe to be the true colony of the Arakkoa.

Caverns of time/Escape from Durnhold Keep - Ahhh The caverns of time, I have recently gained a new respect for this zone after reading the hour of twilight book this week and this zone is incredible. Guarded by the faithful and powerful Bronze dragon flight, the keepers of time. There are a number of instances and raids within this zone that sends the players back in time to previous historic events that have shaped the world we adventure through today. The Escape from Durnhold is no exception. It goes back a number of years to when Taretha Foxton is creating a diversion to help Thrall escape from the evil grips of Aedelas Blackmoore. Thrall, Also the name for Slave uses your help to create such a diversion that then leads to his escape and eventually the retaking of the keep and the death of many humans and Blackmoore and going on to become the warchief of the horde. WE LOVE YOU THRALL!

Now on to the shaman bits!

Some more goodies to play with! Shamans just get better and better.

Healing Tide Totem - Finally! I have looked up so much on this beauty and I was so pleased once I got this little gem. This is an incredible totem and should not be used so like mindlessly as too Healing Stream Totem. Once this is placed it will heal 5 players every 2 seconds for 11 seconds, The amount it heals is insane and I can not wait to try this out in the big raids! I use this when I know I wont be able to heal the group in time and when I know of huge incoming damage.

Bloodlust - Our most sort after spell as a shaman. Why blizzard gave mages and hunter pets this ability I will never know.. Anyway this spell will grant all party and raid members a 30 % melee, ranged and spell haste for 40 seconds. It does have a 5 minute cooldown and you may think that's a tad crazy for such a powerful cooldown but it also will give the player it affected a sated debuff so that player can not gain that type of buff such as time warp for another 10 minutes. Use this on bosses, in raiding this will tend to be used at the start of the encounter or at the last 25 - 30% depending on the boss mechanics.

Spirit Link Totem - Another one of the Restoration shamans signature tools to the kit! This is an absolute beast of a cooldown and one of my favorites by far. This totem once used will reduce the damage taken by all party and raid members within 10 yards by 10%. Also every one second the health of all affected players is redistributed such that each player ends up with the same percentage of their maximum health, Lasts 6 seconds. When used properly, a stacked up raid/party taking an incredible amount of damage, this beauty will not only reduce damage taken be even out everyone's health without causing any over healing making it one of the most powerful cooldowns and works great with healing rain and other totems.

So that's it for my dungeon/shaman spells update! I do however have a little bit more information to share with you all. I have had such a great time working on my playthrough and my shaman and have been lucky enough to come across some great players one of which deserves a special mention. Katherynne has I presume been looking at my posts now and then and actually commented on a forum post I made a while ago, offering help etc with shamans and end game healing. Recently I have received some awesome tips and tricks on what spells to use, what stats to aim for, what glyphs will be good for raiding etc and alot of things have already improved me as a healer, as a shaman. I just want to say a quick thank you for the information shared with me, I truly appreciate it. - Vay.

If you have stuck around this long then enjoy the clip below. It's me healing through Blood furnace with some ridiculous Chain CC going on from enemies. GIVE ME BUBBLE BITCH! 

Restoration Shaman | Playthrough | 50 - 60

Hello everyone, hope you're all having a awesome weekend! A quick little IRL update.. I went out last night to see Turbo with the girlfriend which by the way was totally not my idea... :3 I'm going on 23 and I still want to watch dreamworks films? I refuse to grow up just yet! Anyway, I have to say it was one of my favorite animated films, Was so awesome. It's that time again! Lets see where our little Shaman went in this bracket and get to know a little bit more about the dungeons and why I enjoyed them.

So we finally reach the classic vanilla end game bracket and as you would expect, we was faced with some pretty huge instances to grind through. Some of the most loved and noticeable instances are within this bracket and for me on of the most diverse. The zones are huge, with so many different routes to take, shortcuts to be found etc, I really did enjoy this bracket in terms of healing. The huge pulls, interesting fights and not to mention the locations, It makes this post really exciting for me to write. 

Black rock depths/Spire - This to me is one of the greatest ideas and such a large scale of an area to hold some of the most game changing experiences in my World Of Warcraft playtime to date. Blackrock holds home to some of the most memorable encounters and incredible game development. For new players and people who were not too fond of dungeons per say, This location has been dramatically changed in terms of difficulty and ease of access. With the introduction to Looking For Dungeon, with a click of a button and depending your wait time you will be transported to this location and have quests to guide you through as well as Dungeon maps and can easily get through this in a decent amount of time and not to mention, heirlooms making everything that tad easier.

However, for seasonal players many will either hate this place or love it just like myself. This was the real turning point for me with my gaming Experience. First of all, Black Rock Depths (BRD) Looking for players to run through this place in trade chat was hard enough! But to finally get a team to delve into the depths of this dwarven mountain, each player knew they had 3 to 5 hours worth of challenges to tackle and overcome. With no real clear route to take, with tasks to complete to open gateways, huge dwarven doors and such, this really turned new Players to Veterans. With most people entering with Green/blue gear, backpacks full of potions and back up gear they did not need to repair, the night was set to defeat the mountain. There was also Black rock spire to attack once you reached level 60. This twisting maze of orcs, Dragonkin and trolls made this place even more epic. You heard rumors of this place, but nothing beats that feeling as a new player stepping in to this incredible Dungeon knowing this was the first stepping stone to the legendary Molten Core (MC)

Sunken Temple - The Temple of Atal' Hakkar, also known as Sunken Temple (ST) was a real challenge and used to take a decent amount of time. As mentioned above, with the new changes this instance has been made a tad easier than it used to be and a lot less time consuming. A skinning heaven this place was which made me see my first 500g back in the day, this was considered a lot! with so many twists and turns this maze full of Dragonkin and trolls was one of my favorite experiences. What this place also held was my first Epic item, Dragons call. which at the time was a huge thing, not many people were lucky enough to see one till raiding back then and when we did finally get that rare, mystical Item, We felt good! Even though I was a hunter and every melee weapon available we went for!

Blizzard seem to have put so much effort into the old content, not all of it was accessible to everyone like it is now days, so again looking in trade for a ST run was never easy, it was more of a guild thing, which back pre TBC days, being in a guild was more a privilege than a perk boost like it is becoming today, which I think is a shame. *Sad face* but nether the less, this place held so many good moments. I will never forget the Snakehead puzzle to summon the twin dragons as well as the summonable secret boss.

Now moving on to the shaman stuff! here I will mention each new spell/talent I gained

Tremor Totem - This beauty is great for moments such as boss/mob fears. If yourself or a player gets Feared, drop this and it removes the effect. Simple and yet, so very effective.

Mana Tide Totem - Another water totem to our disposal! This awesome thing gives your raid/party members 200% of your spirit for 16 seconds! It does have a 3 minute cooldown but this is great for low mana situations and no doubt will be used when needed within raiding, One thing about shamans is that you can always rely on there utility. This is just another gem to the bag.

Earth Elemental Totem - Use this and a huge earth like Golem is called forth to punch the things for a minute. This can be used with Fire elemental and I'm pretty sure gives you a buff once you pick a specific level 90 talent. We will have to wait and see.

Greater Healing Wave - Our last real main healing spell we have unlocked, this spell does have a longer cast time than others and is rather mana intensive but it does pack a huge healing punch so I tend to use this only when needed, and mostly used with the next Talent I shall mention.

Ancestral Swiftness (Talent) - Your next nature spell with a base cast time of less than 10 seconds becomes instant cast, Great when used with Greater Healing Wave, a real oh crap button when a player takes serious damage. It also gives you a passive 5% spell haste and 10% melee haste. Of course the Melee haste is ignored here but the spell haste is great, It helps with the lower end Haste break points so I hear and helps for lower gear levels.

Healing Rain - I LOVE THIS SPELL! It's received some love recently This is a blanket heal on a specific area and anyone who stands within the rain will be healed every 2 seconds for 10 seconds.  Great for stacked aoe damage and I also found great with healing tide totems and chain heals. Some great Aoe healing right there. ( This can also be instant cast when used after Ancestral Swiftness)

On to the glyphs! 

Glyph of Healing stream - This applies a 10% reduction to fire, frost and nature damage for 6 seconds to the player healed by the totem, It works great in dungeons and will be great within the raiding when moving out of fire and such becomes more frequent.

Glyph of deluge - This gives our chain heal and new cosmetic effect, Instead of a bright light (much like the mass resurrection effect around the caster) it turns it in to a torrent of water around our hands, Looks awesome!

So there you have it, some more detailed information on the dungeons and why I enjoyed them, as well as more information of the new spells I have acquired! It all helps towards the aim of becoming a decent heroic raider and hopefully a frequent blogger on them too. But don't worry my brew drinking monk friends, I have some information I will share soon with you all! 

I would just like to thank Nyxrinne for my new awesome blog layout, I was so pleased with the outcome I couldn't believe how great it was and exactly to my liking. To find out more information on her, she also has a great blog so please feel free to check it out at:

http://touch-of-death.blogspot.co.uk/

Restoration Shaman | Playthrough | 40 - 50

Hello Ladies and Gentleman! You know what time it is, This week I have done so many things out of game and also trying a few new things ingame I have had almost no time to post much recently! I have been making a few videos here and there, Tried my luck at some RP on Argent dawn, Was lucky enough to get enlisted into a really good and well known guild called <Darnassus> as well as some IRL things such as Popping up to london, cinema, few dinners with the lady friend and passed a pub called The Brewmaster, I have also got some leveling done on my shaman so enough waffle. Time to get on with this Diary Entry. 

As my readers shall know, and for new readers alike, I have been completely leveling through dungeons. I have had a few messages as to why this is the case and why I stick to this type of play. Alot of people ask if its boring, repetitive etc. So I thought I'd quickly go over this matter. Yes, It can be boring and yes it is extremely repetitive, I personally would not advise it if you're power leveling a specific class. BUT! and the only reason why I'm choosing to level as resto through dungeons is to gain that healer experience, Understand how spells work and really get a feel for the class. The easy way would be to quest to 90 as Elemental, soon as I get 90 buy some spirit gear, read some guides, learn all my spells, work out my key bindings etc... That to me just seems more hassle than its worth, What I really enjoy about playing a class is learning to understand it. Healing especially because it takes some time to master, sometime to really understand some of the spell synergy and to me, its always great to get a head start. 

So within this bracket I have been lucky enough to jump in to some of the most well made instances Blizzard has to throw at us pre Burning Crusade. I delve deep into Razorfen Downs, Dire Maul West and my favorite dungeon of all time, Scholomance, Heres a little background story on each dungeon: 

Scholomance - The twisted, evil building also known as the House Of Barov is located within a lake in Western Plaguelands, It is believed to be an academy, Or school for evil Necromancers and dark mages. This building fell during the Second war and for each day since, it has been home to some disgusting work. Humans, re building abominations, ghouls and Skeleton like creatures, this building has a dark past, that it does not wish to share. 

Dire Maul West (Capital gardens) - The second wing within dire maul  this one home to abundance of enemies. From Orc size trees, Ogers, Skeletons, Mana wraiths but that is not all that stands in the way,.Towards the end of the instance you will come across a imprisoned demon named Immol'Thar. This instance requires your group to navigate around the imprisoned monster, killing enemies safeguarding crystals that's shrouding him. Once this is done, you can then move on to kill his protector. 

Razorfen Downs - This Demonic, spiritual place is home to the original ancestral burial grounds for the QuilBoar, Embedded deep below Thousand Needles. The hallways and and tight ridges are now infested with Scourge trying to disrupt the well being of these creatures, its not long before more skeletons and abominations start over whelming this place. so be aware, get your cleansing waters ready!  

In this section I will go over the spells and talents I have acquired during this bracket, They are as follows:

Chain Heal - This beauty I got at level 44, FINALLY! This spell heals the initial target and will then bounce to another 4 targets healing the most injured. If players hit by the spell have a riptide rolling off them, this will then make the Chain heal 25% more potent. I glyphed it to give it that watery look, as well as Glyph of Chaining which will increases its radius. This spell is incredible for aoe healing paired with riptides as well as healing tide totem. 

Tidal Waves (Passive) - After casting Chain heal or Ripide your next 2 greater healing wave or healing wave cast time is reduced by 30% which makes it great for spot healing/tank healing. It also increases the critical effect chance of your healing surge by 30%. This also shares the same amount of charges as above. I love this Passive, it really does make chain heal a great way to keep tidal waves up during aoe healing just incase of huge spike damage. 

Call Of The Elements (Talent) - I chose this one because it works extremely well with healing stream totem, it has a 3 minute cooldown and when activated it finishes the cooldown on all totems with a base cooldown Shorter than 3 minutes. It's great I found for using another Healing stream, Tremor totem, Grounding totem and Capacitor totem.

So thats it for this update, I will be keeping you guys and girls up to speed more so with my progress on this shaman as well as Hearthstone Beta footage! Thats right! I got the key tonight and I was so happy I screamed like a bitch! I'm also doing WW pvp videos and I would love to give a shout out to Nyxrinne who's currently in the middle of my new Blog layout, It looks so awesome and I'm so lucky to have that work done for me, its much appreciated and You guys will see the final result soon enough! - Vaylen. 

Check out his blog at: http://touch-of-death.blogspot.co.uk/

Restoration Shaman | Playthrough | 30 - 40

Hello Hello! It's come to that time once again were I post about my dungeon adventures between each bracket, this one in particular was one of my favorite dungeon groups, With a number of rather different dungeons to overcome my little shaman had a blast! 

So, as my journey continues ever more towards the end game content the recent dungeons have been a awesome change to the other ones I have seen so much of. From demonic creatures in the halls and pools of Dire Maul to the lost and all but forgotten mines and temples of the underground excavation site, Uldaman. I had a few new spells to play around with here and as ever I shall list the abilities I acquired through this bracket and a bit of background information on the dungeons. 

A little background on these instances:

Dire Maul East - The east wing is the first entrance that can be found in the dire maul hold to the right within the depths and dense forests of Feralas. The rolling hills give away to a path that runs right through this zone, heading north you will find this building guarded heavily by slightly clumsy ogres and cunning wolves.  The Instance is home to possessed demonic creatures, only but proving themselves to the burning legion. The halls are large but it is a simple navigate around, Just watch out for the trees and other shadowy inhabitants.

Maraudon - This incredible structure sits dormant in the caves of Desolace and unfolds to a huge chain of caverns and underwater features. You start your adventure within the Orange chambers that's home to toxic elements and really hungry plants.. Yes plants! This will then lead on to the twisted and lost caves of the Purple section home to demonic like creatures. Poison falls is then just around the corner, avoiding the blobs and toxic pools you will then see the beauty of the last section, Take a leap off of the waterfall and you will be in front of the last section, The Inner Sanctum of Maraudon.Here you will find Golems the size of zeppelins, Hydras and an assortment of waterlife which will ultimately lead you to take down the cursed Princess if you could call her that, Theradras.   

Uldaman - This long lost and ancient titan fault is buried deep within the mountains of the badlands. Currently in the state of excavation by the dark iron dwarves whom seek all the relics and riches for their master, Ragnaros.  The Caverns will lead you past Scorpions, Bats, Dwarfs, Constructs, Trogg like creatures and deep within his fault the servant of the Titans, Archaedas lies waiting.  

In this section I will go over my new spells

So! Here we go! The juicy bit, but with these 10 new levels I have not required new spells as such but some really strong passives, some are so strong I have noticed as difference straight away and I will list them as follows: 

Reincarnation (Passive) - This beauty is simple, If I die, I can bring myself back to life and continue the fight for survival, great in raids, great in questing, Great for everything, I love it. 

Ancestral Awakening (passive) - when I land a direct critical heal spell, An extra healing spell is thrown on to a player with the least health for 30% of the amount healed, a really strong passive when tank healing and such. It's just a shame you don't see the astral being doing his or hers thing. 

Burning Wrath (passive) - Plain and simple, gives raid and party members 10% spell power, thats why casters love us! 

Resurgence (passive) - This is my favorite one out of the four I have received this bracket. When Water shield is active our healing critical strikes will return a base amount of mana depending on what spell was used from what I read. Healing wave and Greater haling wave replenish more, then healing surge, riptide and unleashed life and then the least to receive the most mana return is chain heal. I hardly ever run out of mana with this beauty.  

So thats it from me this week! Stay tuned for the next bracket! and Remember, stay out of the fire and stay under the rain! - Vay.  

Restoration Shaman | Playthrough | 20 - 30

Happy weekend everybody! Hope you're all enjoying the few days off work we get! I work within the retail sector so getting the weekend off is actually a rare thing, but as I have two and a half weeks off work, I hope to get this Shaman level 90 before I go back! So now time for an update! 

So picking up where I left off from the last post, Once I got to level 20 and ran a few Shadowfang keeps I was able to dabble in Scarlet halls and Blackfathom deeps. Scarlet a really great instance and was remade really well. I do miss the old Scarlet instances, but the new ones make a nice addition to the low level dungeons.

A little background on these instances:

Shadowfang Keep - This haunted keep sits right above the borderline to Gilneas overlooking a small village called Pyrewood inhabited by wolves and other evil animals. It's home to a demented and cursed Vincent Godfrey, A traitor to his homeland and forsaken. This instance is the residence of a whole range of undead, and you wont find much trace of the old inhabitant anywhere in the dark and twisted halls.

Blackfathom Deeps - A incredible dungeon, one of the few underwater instances that drags you through many daunting caverns and leaking pathways that open on to ancient architecture which is probably nightelf origin, that is now over run with the twilight cult who are also joined by a mix of creatures and Naga to defend their holy demi god, Aku'Mai, a huge dragon like Hydra. This instance is a difficult one to find, but once the Temple is found to the far west of ashenvale along the coats line, it can be found after a short underground swim, So if you wish to find the entrance, don't forget your flippers and a waterproof map.

Scarlet Halls - This dungeon is located with its other counterparts in Tirisfal glades, slightly north of Undercity. This instance was re worked and now is home to what seem to be crazed Zealots and crusaders, defending their keeps from what was only Undead nightmares to pretty much anything living. The Scarlet crusade have a history of doing so, with anything that is attempting to disrupt their holy ground is an enemy. This particular instance is home to a Houndmaster, Armsmaster and a Wizard by the name of Koegler, Don't stand in the fire!

In this section I will go over my new spells/talents of choice and glyphs

I finally have a selection of new heals to use! It was a great upbeat change to the first few levels and it seemed very basic in which heals to use and with the addition to some of the glyphs I have taken its making this a lot more interesting! heres a list of the useful spells i have gained in my adventures through the dungeons.

Spells

Earth shield - Our go to ability I use on the tanks. This beauty places a shield on our target of choice to increase our healing output on that target by 20% and also causing attacks to the target to heal them for a certain amount. This spell has 9 charges so maintaining it is one of our top priorities.

Earth living weapon - finally our main healing weapon imbue, this is so much better than the flametongue for healers as it increases our healing power and has a 20% chance to trigger a heal over time spell for 15 seconds, the cool this about this spell though is that if you heal a target thats below 35% health, the weapon effect automatically triggers, a real life saver.

Healing stream totem - Our first real healing totem, this has a 30 second cooldown but once placed it will heal the most injured player within 40 yards every 2 seconds for 15 seconds. Great I found for when the group is taking damage. I will use this on cooldown.

Talents

Level 15 talent:

I went with Astral Shift, this ability i found is great for when we're taking unexpected damage and will be even more stronger when we know when to use our damage reduction abilities. This spell reduces damage by 40% for 6 seconds and has a 1.5 minute cooldown, a great spell and the go to choice for me.

Level 30 Talent: 

In this section which seems to give use more utility with totems I went with Earthgrab totem. This Talent replaces our earthbind totem which makes our totem now act as a root instead of a snare. I thought this would be great for kiting mobs away from myself and getting some real distance on some unexpected pulls.

Glyphs

Upon reaching level 25 glyphs are unlocked, these effect how some of your spells work and of course, its up to you how you go about using the ones that most suit you, so here are the two I have chosen. Two more slots unlock at 50, the remaining two at 75. These are split up in to Major and Minor, of course, Majors being the ones that affect spells that are beneficial to raiding.

Glyph of Riptide - This removes the cooldown from out instant cast hot but reduces its initial heal direct heal by 75%. The reason I went for this is because the way I plan on using chain heal effectively in 10 man raiding. Having as many riptides out on the raid as a blanket heal as possible will cause the chain heals to be 25% more potent. With the changes to Chain heal which I have seen, this could be a great way to keep solid raid heals out and an easier way to maintain riptide, Something I will have to practise.

Glyph of Flaming Serpents - this remodels our Searing totem to look like a troll totem used by Vol'jin and gives it a cool fire snake type effect as seen below.

So there you have it! A little insight in to my travels and some new heals to learn and master. Stayed tuned for the next big jump to 40! and as always, stand out of the fire but jump in the rain! - Vay. 

Monk Meditation | Brewmaster Roundtable

Greetings all, in this Episode I was lucky enough to be apart of the hosting team. With a number of great Brewmaster players from around the world, I was one of the lucky ones to be apart of this show.

We spoke on many topics including:

Vengeance, Class synergy, Monk playstyle, favorite spells, Crit vs Mastery, SoO and more!

Restoration Shaman | Playthrough | 1 - 20

Greetings all, In this section of my blog I will be covering my experiences and things I learn as I level up a Restoration Shaman on Ragnaros eu. This will be a home for my accomplishments and what I come across throughout my adventure. - Vaylen.

Like all adventures start, this one began in a foreign place to my knowledge. I had a little dabble in the Panda starting zone but never really paid that much attention to the details. However, with this time round I really did look through every quest, every text, every element and you guessed it, it was a awesome experience. The questing lineage is simple and sends you from point to point, Simplistic and great for new adventures in this land like myself. 

Here You will level to around 11/12 and ultimately save the place of your birthright. With the not so much helpful alliance/horde bashing their ships here and there and generally making a mess of things, we are of course there to clean up their mess. Once the main story is completed You will be given a choice, do you depart as horde or alliance, I went horde, Obviously. 

Once I picked up some quests in Orgrimmar I then headed out to Azshara, North of the horde stronghold. Here I picked up my Heirlooms and Professions. After some research on what would be good for heroic raiding as its what I plan to do on this,  I went with Blacksmithing and Mining  drop mining once maxed and go for Jewelcrafting. I also took this time to grab first aid, cooking and fishing.

Questing here is pretty annoying, its a lot of multitasking so I tend to power through this zone as fast as possible. During my time here I did however find this rather vain artwork, No doubt Gallywix or someone of that goblins status, to get that built for them out of a mountain. :P

Once I reached Level 15 I took a dive in to Dungeon finder and chose my specialization, Restoration. The healing abilities are very limited and will mention my most used healing spells and utility spells at the end of the post.  

After healing that zone I was around level 20, With a larger array of spells, Below shows the spells I currenttly use and have to my disposal: 

Healing wave - My basic healing spell, I use this if I need to cast a small heal, it does however crit big, something like 1.6k at my level and gear.

Healing Surge - My Oh crap heal, Short cast time but costly in mana, use as a last resort. 

Riptide - This I cast on cooldown, it places a hot on a target and also helps with the bonus to health passive shamans posses. 

Searing Totem - I use this with every trash/boss pull. Just shoots a fire bolt to a target.

Flame Shock - A fire dot, I use then when I have nothing to do!

Wind shear - Ranged interrupt  I guess I get in to the habit of stopping everything I can if possible from heroic raiding, so this I use all the time. 

Purify Spirit - Cleanses all magic and curse effects, Only used it once but no doubt will make use of it as much as possible. 

Flametongue - The first Weapon Imbue we get, this we gain a 7% more magic damage done to targets, always helps for now.

Water Shield - This refunds some mana every few seconds, Also when I receive melee damage I retain a lot of mana.  

Stay tuned for my daily updates on this character and I hope you enjoy it as much as I am! - Vay.